Cars that can automatically dial triple-0 after a crash become reality

Imagine your car could automatically call triple-0 after a crash, even if you were trapped or unconscious, and communicate your GPS location, the type of the accident and the number of people on board to emergency services.

Technological advances have now made the concept a reality with some major car manufacturers now looking at installing such devices in new cars.

Perth-based technology expert Martyn Gilbert, surgeon Adam Boyt and a small team of software engineers have developed their own version, specifically designed for remote areas in Australia, where the time taken to notify emergency services can be the difference between life and death.

The device, known as Sentinel, is fire, water and chemical resistant and can handle 100 G-forces.

It is triggered by sensors on impact, by fire, when submerged in water, on airbag deployment or even self-activated using an SOS button.

While designed primarily for cars, the device can be adapted to work on farm machinery, motorbikes and planes.

The device firstly uses the mobile phone network to get its message out but in the event of no coverage, it can transmit using satellites.

"This has been specifically designed to survive an accident and make sure that critical phone call, when you need it, is made," Mr Gilbert said.

"When you get out to the remote and regional areas you need that satellite solution. We developed the technology to work in the Australian market because when you're in the outback, every minute, every hour counts when you've had an accident."

Local technology inspired by tragedy

He lost a colleague several years ago in a car rollover, leaving him to question why more had not been done to improve response times.

"She wasn't found for a little while so I wondered if there was anything that could have been done to shorten the time before she was found," he said.

"I was sitting down with Martyn and having a chat, like you do with your friend about it, and we said, 'let's do something about it'."

There were 1,225 deaths on Australian roads last year.

Meta-analysis from Europe shows installing a crash device like the Sentinel can halve the emergency response time, which is predicted to save between 150 and 200 Australian lives and prevent 2,500 profound injuries each year.

"In surgery, one of the things we've learnt is time is important," Mr Boyd said.

"Not just in terms of whether someone survives — obviously if it's a big enough injury, time won't make a difference — but most of the time, particularly with cars getting safer, people survive that first initial accident.

"But because of the delay in definitive treatment, they either pass away or they end up with a much worse injury than they would have."

Emergency call feature to be compulsory in Europe

The European Union has acknowledged the impact the devices can have, approving plans to make an emergency call feature mandatory in all new cars and vans from April.

The system, known as eCall, is predicted to prevent 2,500 road deaths and save 32 billion euros ($49 billion) a year.

Australia's National Emergency Communications Working Group, chaired by New South Wales director of policing command Chris Beatson, said the technology could boost the emergency services' arsenal.

"The fact these devices do provide an accurate location based on the GPS of the device via your mobile phone or the vehicle, that then speeds our response up," Mr Beatson said.

"A lot of the devices in the vehicles can tell us the severity of the accident, they can tell us how many people are in the vehicle, they can tell us which part of the vehicle has been involved in the accident, so there's a lot of smarts in them that says, yes, this is a serious accident."

He said the sector welcomed a wider roll-out of the technology given the devices had safeguards to avoid false alarms.

"One of the things emergency services don't want to do is waste emergency services by sending vehicles out to false activations of these devices — it wastes time and impacts on other people who potentially need our services," he said.

Mr Gilbert and Mr Boyt's company, IMR Technologies, will start trialling the device in collaboration with the triple-0 service this year and has plans to initially roll it out in the EU, before making it available in Australia later this year.